The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in all sorts of strange costumes. It seemed to Montague that most of them were flashy people—the men had red faces and the women had loud voices; he saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet facing. It occurred to him that if these women had not worn such large hats, they would not have needed quite such a supply of the bright-coloured veiling which they wound over the hats and tied under their chins, or left to float about in the breeze.
The dining-room seemed to have been built in sections, rambling about on the summit of the cliff. The side of it facing the water was all glass, and could be taken down. The ceiling was a maze of streamers and Japanese lanterns, and here and there were orange-trees and palms and artificial streams and fountains. Every table was crowded, it seemed; one was half-deafened by the clatter of plates, the voices and laughter, and the uproar of a negro orchestra of banjos, mandolins, and guitars. Negro waiters flew here and there, and a huge, stout head-waiter, who was pirouetting and strutting, suddenly espied Oliver, and made for him with smiles of welcome.
“Yes, sir—just come in, sir,” he said, and led the way down the room, to where, in a corner, a table had been set for sixteen or eighteen people. There was a shout, “Here’s Ollie!”—and a pounding of glasses and a chorus of welcome—“Hello, Ollie! You’re late, Ollie! What’s the matter—car broke down?”
Of the party, about half were men and half women. Montague braced himself for the painful ordeal of being introduced to sixteen people in succession, but this was considerately spared him. He shook hands with Robbie Walling, a tall and rather hollow-chested young man, with slight yellow moustaches; and with Mrs. Robbie, who bade him welcome, and presented him with the freedom of the company.
Then he found himself seated between two young ladies, with a waiter leaning over him to take his order for the drinks. He said, a little hesitatingly, that he would like some whisky, as he was about frozen, upon which the girl on his right, remarked, “You’d better try a champagne cocktail—you’ll get your results quicker.” She added, to the waiter, “Bring a couple of them, and be quick about it.”
“You had a cold ride, no doubt, in that low car,” she went on, to Montague. “What made you late?”
“We had some delays,” he answered. “Once we thought we were arrested.”
“Arrested!” she exclaimed; and others took up the word, crying, “Oh, Ollie! tell us about it!”
Oliver told the tale, and meantime his brother had a chance to look about him. All of the party were young—he judged that he was the oldest person there. They were not of the flashily dressed sort, but no one would have had to look twice to know that there was money in the crowd. They had had their first round of drinks, and started in to enjoy themselves. They were all intimates, calling each other by their first names. Montague noticed that these names always ended in “ie,”—there was Robbie and Freddie and Auggie and Clarrie and Bertie and Chappie; if their names could not be made to end properly, they had nicknames instead.
“Ollie” told how they had distanced the policeman; and Clarrie Mason (one of the younger sons of the once mighty railroad king) told of a similar feat which his car had performed. And then the young lady who sat beside him told how a fat Irish woman had skipped out of their way as they rounded a corner, and stood and cursed them from the vantage-point of the sidewalk.
The waiter came with the liquor, and Montague thanked his neighbour, Miss Price. Anabel Price was her name, and they called her “Billy”; she was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due time that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he would feel a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work to make him feel at home—an attempt in which she was not altogether successful.
They were bound for a shooting-lodge, and so she asked him if he were fond of shooting. He replied that he was; in answer to a further question he said that he had hunted chiefly deer and wild turkey. “Ah, then you are a real hunter!” said Miss Price. “I’m afraid you’ll scorn our way.”
“What do you do?” he inquired.
“Wait and you’ll see,” replied she; and added, casually, “When you get to be pally with us, you’ll conclude we don’t furnish.”
Montague’s jaw dropped just a little. He recovered himself, however, and said that he presumed so, or that he trusted not; afterward, when he had made inquiries and found out what he should have said, he had completely forgotten what he HAD said.—Down in a hotel in Natchez there was an old head-waiter, to whom Montague had once appealed to seat him next to a friend. At the next meal, learning that the request had been granted, he said to the old man, “I’m afraid you have shown me partiality”; to which the reply came, “I always tries to show it as much as I kin.” Montague always thought of this whenever he recalled his first encounter with “Billy” Price.
The young lady on the other side of him now remarked that Robbie was ordering another “topsy-turvy lunch.” He inquired what sort of a lunch that was; she told him that Robbie called it a “digestion exercise.” That was the only remark that Miss de Millo addressed to him during the meal (Miss Gladys de Mille, the banker’s daughter, known as “Baby” to her intimates). She was a stout and round-faced girl, who devoted herself strictly to the business of lunching; and Montague noticed at the end that she was breathing rather hard, and that her big round eyes seemed bigger than ever.
Conversation was general about the table, but it was not easy conversation to follow. It consisted mostly of what is known as “joshing,” and involved acquaintance with intimate details of personalities and past events. Also, there was a great deal of slang used, which kept a stranger’s wits on the jump. However, Montague concluded that all his deficiencies were made up for by his brother, whose sallies were the cause of the loudest laughter. Just now he seemed to the other more like the Oliver he had known of old—for Montague had already noted a change in him. At home there had never been any end to his gaiety and fun, and it was hard to get him to take anything seriously; but now he kept all his jokes for company, and when he was alone he was in deadly earnest. Apparently he was working hard over his pleasures.
Montague could understand how this was possible. Some one, for instance, had worked hard over the ordering of the lunch—to secure the maximum of explosive effect. It began with ice-cream, moulded in fancy shapes and then buried in white of egg and baked brown. Then there was a turtle soup, thick and green and greasy; and then—horror of horrors—a great steaming plum-pudding. It was served in a strange phenomenon of a platter, with six long, silver legs; and the waiter set it in front of Robbie Walling and lifted the cover with a sweeping gesture—and then removed it and served it himself. Montague had about made up his mind that this was the end, and begun to fill up on bread-and-butter, when there appeared cold asparagus, served in individual silver holders resembling andirons. Then—appetite now being sufficiently whetted—there came quail, in piping hot little casseroles—; and then half a grape-fruit set in a block of ice and filled with wine; and then little squab ducklings, bursting fat, and an artichoke; and then a café parfait; and then—as if to crown the audacity—huge thick slices of roast beef! Montague had given up long ago—he could keep no track of the deluge of food which poured forth. And between all the courses there were wines of precious brands, tumbled helter-skelter,—sherry and port, champagne and claret and liqueur. Montague watched poor “Baby” de Mille out of the corner of his eye, and pitied her; for it was evident that she could not resist the impulse to eat whatever was put before her, and she was visibly suffering. He wondered whether he might not manage to divert her by conversation, but he lacked the courage to make the attempt.